Yimou Zhang	...	(Director)
Wei Li, Yimou Zhang	...	(Writer)
Chao Deng	...	Commander
Li Sun	...	Madam (Wife of Commander Yu)
Ryan Zheng	...	The King of Pei
Qianyuan Wang	...	Captain Tian
Jingchun Wang	...	Minister Lu
Jun Hu	...	General Yang
Xiaotong Guan	...	The Princess (The King's sister)
Lei Wu	...	Ping (General Yang's son)
Zai Lao	...	Composer
Xiaoding Zhao	...	Cinematographer
Xiaolin Zhou	...	Editor

Comments: Sashay into a life or death dual like a runway model twirling an umbrella and you get a like from me.

My western ears always want to label the music which often accompanies these Chinese period palace intrigue pieces as "atonal", but that's just my ears. It's very cool. I wish there would have been more on-camera jamming.

The film looks like live-action calligraphy. It's very beautiful but not quite beautiful enough to watch just for the beauty. For me the evil/old commander uglies up the film. The melodrama (and the stumbling around wounded/sick yet still able to fight) goes over the top a little too often without enough Shakespearean cojones to sustain it, making the film drag a little from time to time.

Still, a masterful work from a master.

Summary: Set during China's Three Kingdom's era (AD 220-280). The story of a great king and his people, who will be expelled from their homeland and will aspire to claim it. The king, violent and ambitious, of mysterious methods and motives; his general, a visionary who yearns to win the final battle but needs to prepare his plans in secret; the women of the palace, who struggle to find redemption in a world where they have no place; and a commoner called "Lord of all the world", will be the characters around who turn the inexorable forces of this story.